


about-face

by treescape



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings, Intimacy, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25591693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape
Summary: “You’ve been avoiding me for three days.”Obi-Wan didn’t look up at Anakin’s words, but the line of his shoulders tensed against the backdrop of space. The starboard bridge wasn’t exactly where Anakin wanted to have this conversation, but it wasn’t like Obi-Wan had given him much of a choice.Or, Anakin asks for something and Obi-Wan panics.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 36
Kudos: 399





	about-face

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime during the Clone Wars.

In hindsight, Anakin thought he probably should have figured it out sooner.

He could have seen it that first time, if he’d really wanted to. He’d been alight with adrenaline and nerves after yet another close call, but that was no excuse. They’d rutted against each other in the deserted landing bay, Obi-Wan’s face buried against his shoulder, and Anakin had lost himself on years of hunger and greed.

He might have noticed it that second time, if he’d really thought about it. He’d been tense with frustration and failure after another disappointing Council meeting, but it had been right there in front of his eyes. Obi-Wan had fucked him against the wall of his quarters on Coruscant, brow pressed against the nape of his neck, and Anakin had fallen apart on years of desire and love.

Certainly he should have realized it in the half dozen times since, as pattern became codified into habit.

But perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. Anakin never _had_ been good at leaving well enough alone.

He always did have to ask for something more.

\---

“You’ve been avoiding me for three days.”

Obi-Wan didn’t look up at Anakin’s words, but the line of his shoulders tensed against the backdrop of space. The starboard bridge wasn’t exactly where Anakin wanted to have this conversation, but it wasn’t like Obi-Wan had given him much of a choice.

“We spoke in the mess hall less than an hour ago,” Obi-Wan said, his fingers distractedly tapping at the screen in front of him, but he’d hardly looked at Anakin then, either. It had made Anakin feel like he was under a floodlight, as if every person in the room could tell he’d somehow fucked up.

Anakin dug his hip into the console, leaning in close. No one was near enough to actually hear him, not with their voices pitched so low, but this was one thing he didn’t like to take chances with. When Obi-Wan didn’t flinch away, either physically or in the Force, something eased a little in Anakin’s chest.

Obi-Wan wasn’t shutting him out completely, at least, which meant that Anakin still had half a chance at fixing things.

If only this were as easy as repairing machines.

“Is it because of what I said?”

Obi-Wan was quiet for two, three, four beats—long enough that Anakin was just beginning to flounder for something to fill the silence. The problem was that he didn’t know what Obi-Wan _wanted_. It felt as if he were drowning, lost abruptly on a sea of conjecture and reserve. Sometimes, Anakin just didn’t understand how he and Obi-Wan could be so entirely in sync in some ways and on different planets in others.

“You’ve said a lot of things over the years, Anakin,” Obi-Wan eventually replied, his voice noncommittal, and it was true. He’d said things to make Obi-Wan laugh, said things to make him roll his eyes, said things to make him bright with anger.

But this one had made Obi-Wan go still above him, panic rising through the Force around them with a bitter taste. Obi-Wan had worked a third exquisite finger into Anakin’s hole, and Anakin had thrust desperately into the mattress, cock hard and aching against the rough sheets, before craning his head back to gasp: “ _Can I…I want to see your face this time._ ”

Obi-Wan had frozen, his weight suddenly rigid against Anakin’s body. It had hit all at once— _of course Obi-Wan wouldn’t want to see Anakin’s face_ —and Anakin had managed to stutter a “Never mind, this is good. Obi-Wan, _please_ ” and angle his hips back until Obi-Wan had finally removed his fingers and fucked Anakin into the bed. Anakin had pressed his face into the pillows and tried not to think about how blue Obi-Wan’s eyes might turn as he came.

Now, here, standing on the bridge of the ship that bore Obi-Wan’s nickname, Anakin thought he might say just about anything to make Obi-Wan look at him at all.

“Look, Obi-Wan. I won’t ask again. We can forget about it.” If his voice was a little on the rough side, Anakin thought it was slight enough to go unnoticed. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just…will you come by tonight?”

Obi-Wan frowned, and Anakin wasn’t sure if it was at the words themselves, or his admittedly desperate tone, or something else entirely. But Obi-Wan finally raised his eyes to meet Anakin’s dead on, his lips beginning to form the shape that Anakin recognized as a _yes_ , and—

—and that was when alarms began going off throughout the bridge and they both snapped immediately to attention.

Calamity always had the _worst_ timing.

\---

In the end, it was just a faulty sensor in the cargo bay, but then there seemed to be another thing and another and another. Somewhere along the way, Anakin lost track of Obi-Wan, both of them pulled in different directions by the everyday demands of an ongoing war.

By day’s end, the parts of Anakin that felt stretched thin—from the endless battles, from the politics of war, from the last three days of Obi-Wan’s withdrawal—clamored to seek Obi-Wan out again. He wanted to push the matter, to demand Obi-Wan’s attention, to promise anything he had to in order to get it.

But the memory of Obi-Wan’s lips parting on an unstated _yes_ made him return to his quarters and wait, sitting on the edge of a tiny bunk that somehow seemed too big for one.

When Obi-Wan palmed open the door not long after, Anakin felt almost dizzy with relief. He had become well-accustomed, over the years, to the staggering persistence of his desire for Obi-Wan; the only thing that scared him about it these days was the knowledge that sooner or later, he would careen over the edge of his own avarice and ask for too much.

He could only hope that today was not that day, that he might stay that execution a short while longer.

The door slid closed behind Obi-Wan, but Anakin simply watched him, boots planted firmly on the floor and fingers of flesh and metal tight around fistfuls of bedding. He wanted to stand and crowd into Obi-Wan’s space. He wanted to goad Obi-Wan into pushing him face down to the mattress so that Obi-Wan could fuck him without having to acknowledge that it was _Anakin_ beneath him. He wanted to never look away, to satiate his hunger on the contours of Obi-Wan’s face.

Obi-Wan moved further into the room, hair curling over his brow in that way that always made Anakin want to sweep it aside, and stopped just out of Anakin’s reach. When Obi-Wan met his eyes with an evenness as familiar to Anakin as his own connection to the Force, Anakin knew with certainty what he would say.

“I had not thought you could possibly wish to see the face of your former Master with such intimacy. It meant that I did not have to face how much this scares me.”

The words parted around Anakin like water, like air, like sand, and he at the centre unable to entirely seize them.

They were not the words he had thought to hear.

“Are you serious right now?” It wasn’t at all what Anakin had meant to say, and it was _exactly_ what he had meant to say. Obi-Wan was the first person Anakin looked for in a room, his face and posture the star by which Anakin set his course. “I never _don’t_ want to see you.” Even when he was so angry at Obi-Wan he could spit, the familiar angles of his face were somehow grounding.

And then, through the rush of words in Anakin’s ears, the second part of what Obi-Wan had said fully registered. “Wait. What do you mean, scares you?”

For once, Obi-Wan seemed to be at a loss for words, the sweep of his eyebrows drawn in close over his eyes. He took one more step, and Anakin’s thighs spread automatically to let Obi-Wan kneel one leg against the edge of the bed between them. Anakin felt his own head angling back and up to keep Obi-Wan’s face in view.

Slowly, somehow naturally, one of Obi-Wan’s hands came up to curl around Anakin’s neck, the tips of the other grazing against one cheek, and then there was the brush of Obi-Wan’s beard on his skin and the sure press of Obi-Wan’s mouth on his.

They’d kissed before, chaotic clashes of lips and teeth and tongues that always ended with Obi-Wan’s eyes tightly closed, or his face dropping to tilt against Anakin’s shoulder, or any other manner of evasion. But this one was slow and delirious, leaving Anakin breathless in a way that felt distinctly like free fall.

After what felt like an eternity suspended in time, Obi-Wan pulled back to rest his brow against Anakin’s. Anakin’s eyes opened to the sight of Obi-Wan’s lashes fluttering, golden, against the span of his cheekbones, and his eyes, when those lashes finally separated, had deepened from slate to something closer to azure.

They burned with a hunger and a need that matched Anakin’s own, and Anakin understood.

As with so many things, they were in this together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
